François Duvalier

Kathy Willens/Associated Press

Outwardly a dictator who would not hesitate to kill his enemies in order to maintain his power over Haiti, François Duvalier wanted the world to believe he was really just a simple little country doctor, so loved by his people that it became his abiding duty to remain "President for Life."

After a military coup, and subsequent uprisings, Duvalier was elected president on Oct. 22, 1957, and initiated a period of brutal and corrupt rule that lasted until his death on April 22, 1971. Through the diversion of public money and the extraction of bribes and kickbacks, the Duvalier family grew fabulously wealthy as the nation stayed mired in poverty.

Early in 1986, Jean-Claude Duvalier, the dictator's son, known as Baby Doc, was overthrown in a popular rebellion and fled to France with a large chunk of the state treasury.

Under the durable Duvalier regime, which lasted longer than any other in Haiti's history -- of the 36 presidents who preceded Papa Doc, 23 were either killed or overthrown -- bloodshed and violence became a way of life. Duvalier himself remained under constant guard, depending on a 600-man palace guard, the 350 soldiers of the Dessalines Barracks adjacent to the gleaming white palace, 5,000 militiamen and perhaps most important, the dreaded Tontons Macoutes (Haitian Creole for "bogeymen").

His legacy to Haiti was doleful. By 1971, more than 13 years after he assumed power, little had changed for the great majority. Almost 90 percent of the people were illiterate and plagued by yaws, tuberculosis and malnutrition.

Duvalier was born in poverty in Port-au-Prince on April 14, 1907. His father was Duval Duvalier, a sometime schoolteacher, and his mother, Uritia Abraham, worked for a bakery. After studying at the Lycée National, the young Duvalier enrolled in the University of Haiti School of Medicine, graduating in 1934. For some years, he served on the staffs of local hospitals, and in 1943, he was recruited into a United States-financed fight against yaws, a tropical skin disease.

While he built up his following in the rugged mountains of Haiiti, Duvalier is said to have consolidated his support among regional voodoo houngans. In 1944, he published a book, "Gradual Evolution of Voodoo."

In 1946, Duvalier, by then involved in politics, became secretary of labor. In the wake of the military coup d'état of 1950, he retreated to private practice while secretly helping to organize resistance to the dictatorship, which was overthrown in 1956. He soon became a candidate for president, putting himself forth as an ally of the army and its potential puppet. To the powerful mulatto oligarchy that controlled the coffee and sugar cane markets, he positioned himself as the little doctor who assured them they had nothing to fear.

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